Rhetoric and reality

Your newspaper points out that despite the UK being traditionally criticised for being unsupportive of the EU, it has a consistent position when it wants a small EU budget, while France and Germany, who claim to support more EU integration but with a small budget, are, in fact, hypocritical (‘More Europe for less? It just doesn’t add up‘, 15-20 December).

European Voice

12/20/05, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 12:08 PM CET

Like very often in the case of France and its attitude towards the EU, the discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is big. France pretends to want ‘more Europe’. But during the Convention on the future of the EU, which drafted the EU constitution, France was one of the countries shying away from more powers being handed over to the EU over foreign affairs, while Germany was keen to keep the EU out of the sensitive and important areas of asylum and immigration.